But for once, Polly isn’t peppering Marissa with questions. She’s still fiddling with her long brown hair.
“I’ll get started.” Polly starts to spin around, and that’s when Marissa notices the distinctive chunky gold-and-onyx earrings Polly is wearing—earrings that adorned Marissa’s own earlobes just yesterday. She’d taken them off and left them on her desk when her AirPods died and she’d had to press her cell phone to her ear.
“Polly? Are those my—”
“You left them here,” Polly blurts, a cherry-colored flush spreading across her fair skin. “I’m sorry, I was worried they’d get lost—I was just—I thought I’d hold them for you.…”
“I see.” The earrings are pierced; it feels a little gross that Polly slid them into her lobes. It would’ve been easy for her to simply put them aside in a safe place.
Polly removes the earrings and holds them out in her palm, casting her big brown eyes toward the floor.
Marissa takes the jewelry, making a mental note to sanitize the pieces before wearing them again.
“Okay, let’s see what you come up with for the window,” Marissa says briskly. “I’ve got to make a few calls. I’ll come look when I’m done.”
As Polly heads toward the front of the store, Marissa walks into the tiny kitchen and makes herself a cup of ginger chai, pulling a paper straw from the supply drawer. She’d taught Polly the trick of using one to not only preserve lipstick, but avoid staining your teeth.
Marissa settles in at her desk, attending to emails and calls. She has just hung up with the candlestick vendor when her phone buzzes with an incoming text. The name on the screen electrifies her.
You doing ok?
He isn’t supposed to be texting her. She’d told him they both had to forget their illicit night ever occurred. It was a mistake. It can’t ever happen again, she’d said the next morning when he’d phoned.
She should be annoyed that he is continuing to reach out. But she’s strangely touched.
The truth is, she hasn’t been able to erase the memory of their time together.
The first time she noticed him—really noticed him—she was drawn to his physicality, his strong shoulders and biceps flexing as he lifted and pulled. He’d turned and smiled at her with a boyish grin that let her know he’d caught her watching.
She stares down at her phone, willing herself to ignore his message.
Three dots appear, almost as if he knows she is looking, waiting to see what he’ll write next.
I know I shouldn’t say this, but I can’t stop thinking about our night.
She hasn’t stopped thinking about it either. Still, if she could undo it, she would. She’d give quite a lot for it never to have happened.
Yet, something unexpected is woven into Marissa’s shame and regret—a deep thread of warmth that comes from the sensation of feeling cherished. Of being truly seen.
It wasn’t just raw sex between them; his kisses were slow and tender and he held her afterward, seemingly reluctant to let her go. Marissa, he’d whispered, his voice husky.
“Marissa?”
She flinches and looks behind her. Polly stands there, holding a fresh cup of tea, just inches away. Close enough, perhaps, to have read the screen of Marissa’s phone.
Marissa flips it over in her hand, feeling her heart pound.
“You startled me.” Marissa stands up and takes a step away from her desk.
“I’m sorry.” Polly’s usually easy to read. But Marissa can’t tell from Polly’s expression whether she glimpsed those incriminating lines on the phone. “I just wanted to let you know the window display is done. I think you’ll like it.”
Marissa wants to push back; her needy young assistant is grating on her. Polly takes a sip of the ginger chai that Marissa favors and Polly has recently proclaimed to be her own favorite. The shirt she’s wearing is tucked in the front and left loose in the back—the same way Marissa always wears her shirts.
It never annoyed Marissa until now. “I’ll be there in a minute,” Marissa says firmly.
“Okay.” Polly skitters away and Marissa quickly deletes the messages.
It’s 10:00 A.M., time for Coco to open. Marissa selects one of her Spotify playlists, and Chris Martin’s voice croons through the speakers.
She walks to the front of the store and looks at Polly’s display. It’s exactly what Marissa asked for: two cozy his-and-her robes draped over a tufted chair, with matching slippers set out. Polly has added a life-size, decorative silver pug dog atop a rug, and a pair of chunky painted mugs on a little glass table. Anyone would want to sink into that scene.
Marissa stares at it. She feels Polly’s eager eyes on her; she swears she can hear Polly’s excited breaths. Polly is standing too close to her again; her presence makes Marissa feel itchy.
“Good effort, but it isn’t quite right.” As soon as the words come out, Marissa regrets them. But not enough to try to smooth them over.
CHAPTER FIVE
AVERY
I COLLAPSE ONTO THE GRASS, gasping. Romeo flops down beside me, his tongue lolling out, his stubby tail thumping the air. “You’re not even winded, are you? Show-off.”
He rolls over, exposing his pink stomach for a scratch. I comply. “Such a good boy.” I can’t help it; I’m a sucker for dogs, especially ones such as Romeo, who no longer have any reason to trust humans, but continue to do so.
It’s a crisp forty-degree day, but clumps of tourists mill around the grassy National Mall stretching between the Washington Monument and the US Capitol. It’s my favorite loop to run. For the past few months, ever since I completed the requisite volunteer training, I’ve been stopping by the animal shelter on my drive here to pick up a jogging buddy. The shelter’s director always finds me a dog who needs the activity; at first I ran with a Labrador mix, then a handsome gray dog who was part whippet. Those two were quickly adopted.
For six weeks straight, my dates have been with Romeo, a pit bull. “He’s a lover, not a fighter, which is why he was dumped here,” the shelter director told me. “But we can’t find him a home. People take one look at him and move on to the next crate.”
Romeo does look fierce, with his powerful jaws, muscular body, docked ears, and scarred face. But inside, he’s a marshmallow. My breathing slows as he leans against me, and I soak in his welcome warmth. Then I glance down at my watch and see it’s almost noon. I’m going to be late if I don’t hurry.
I reluctantly stand up and stretch my tight calves, then give Romeo’s leash—the bright yellow one with the hopeful words ADOPT ME! printed on it in black letters—a tug. He dutifully pads to my parked car, slurps up the water I pour into a collapsible bowl, then hops into the passenger’s seat for the ride back to the shelter.
I’ve grown to hate having to return Romeo to his kennel, even though the shelter is a clean, pleasant space staffed by bighearted volunteers. One of them tosses a rawhide bone into Romeo’s cage when we arrive.
Romeo walks obediently inside. He curls up on his worn bed in the corner and stares at me through the metal bars with limpid brown eyes, ignoring the bone.